Over the past two years, there have been an unprecedented number of deals in Saudi Arabia in a variety of fields, particularly in the fields of entertainment, football, and art. These have included open-budget festivals that have cost hundreds of millions of riyals, the NEOM project, which never materialized despite MBS’s repeated promises and whose financial value reached half a billion dollars, The Line City, which MBS said would be one of NEOM’s stages at a cost of hundreds of millions, and the acquisition of players whose contracts currently total tens of billions of riyals.
Naturally, the billions that MBS spends are not made possible by Saudi budget surpluses; ever since MBS became Crown Prince, there has been a budget deficit every year but 2022, when its surplus was never even close to the amount that the Crown Prince spends.
It is noteworthy that, as announced by the Saudi Crown Prince, the funding for Vision 2030 comes from the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which MBS created specifically for this purpose. In addition, most of the country’s assets were moved to MBS so he could oversee them directly and manage the finances of the Kingdom and its people.
The reader is misled into believing that the mere act of transferring funds to the PIF makes them its property. However, the goal of MBS was to take over the money that was locked up in bank assets. On the other hand, reports from both domestic and foreign sources suggest that the PIF funded entertainment projects and projects for MBS worth a total of $100 billion, all of which were directed toward open investments that did not see the light, such as sports, clubs, and golf leagues; they also included hosting wrestling festivals for foreign wrestlers and drawing artists from Egypt and around the world.
There are two things here that symbolize the danger. The first is the use of billions of the Kingdom’s resources and money, as well as the money of its citizens, on projects that Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) orders to be carried out without consulting experts or competence, raising concerns about the possibility of losing and wasting this money.
The second point is that the majority of MBS’s current projects are entertainment-related. Even the highly anticipated projects, like NEOM, are limited to real estate in the desert. They include hotels, an amusement park, and yacht marinas.
The crisis gets worse because even these lodging facilities, entertainment venues, and tourist destinations are so pricey that no class of people can afford to enjoy them. Experts refer to their audience as the one percent crowd, and these are locations that are only accessible by plane.
Similarly, contrary to what his media outlets say, the Saudi Crown Prince’s economic and development patterns do not portend a bright future or offer opportunities for job creation. Instead, their sole purpose is to draw in tourists; they have no intention of opening factories, starting businesses, or creating a better future for the Saudi citizens.
